The Niagara News is the community newspaper of Niagara College located in Welland and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is created and produced by the students of the Niagara College Journalism program.

Women deserve leadership roles

Over the last few years, Canadians have been waiting to see a big change when looking at who holds power within their country, both in political office and in the boardroom.

There have been many more women trying to achieve powerful leadership positions within their jobs as a career goal for themselves.

This is a large step in the right direction, but we still have a very, verylong way to go.

According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation website, women make up more than half of the population in Canada.

So why is it that we see the majority of positions of power obtained by men?

Out of the top 100 listed companies in Canada in 2015, only 8.5 per cent of the highest-paid positions are obtained by women, according to a story done by CBC.

Although this statistic is a few years old, we know that the current per centage is still not very high.

Not only do we need to see more women in power to provide an equal treatment between both genders, but women have a lot to offer for these positions – contrary to what some people may believe.

There have been numerous studies done to try and come to a conclusion on whether men or women are ‘better’ leaders.

A study done in the United Kingdom that assessed 3,000 managers based on personality and characteristics came to the conclusion that they believe women make better leaders than men for many reasons.

This study, led by Professor Oyvind L. Martinsen, head of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School, concluded that the women they assessed had ‘outperformed’ the men in four out of the five categories that were studied.

These categories included initiative and clear communication; openness and ability to innovate; sociability and supportiveness; methodical management and goal setting; and dealing with work related stress – the category where the men had shown better results.

If women are outperforming men in most of these categories, shouldn’t they have an equal amount of representation in positions of power – if not more – than men?

If women can offer more initiative, more openness, more support, etc., within the workplace and society, we should be pushing to have them in all kinds of leadership positions.

Some large, very successful companies in Canada have their chief executive officer positions occupied by women.

Linda Hasenfratz is the CEO of Linamar, the second largest manufacturer of car parts in Canada. She has held this position since 2002. Brenda Rideout is the CEO of Tangerine, a banking branch of Scotiabank. She has held this position since 2017, when she became the first female CEO of a major financial institution in Canada.

Dawn Farrell is the president and CEO of TransAlta, the largest investor-owned renewable power company in Canada. She has held this position since 2012.

All of these women help display that women are more than capable enough to be the leader of any type of company, whether it be manufacturing, banking, renewable energy or anything else.

There are many men who are good candidates to hold positions of power, but we need more women to obtain leadership roles in the country. This will help to balance gender equality and possibly improve the overall leadership throughout Canada.

Both genders should be able to work together in these leadership positions in order to create a successful display of power in Canada, without any hesitation.

Women have a lot to offer to the leadership world and they deserve the chance to prove it.